AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Will he come see us tomorrow?
They’re all Ruslan-centric questions and it makes me second-guess my decision to stay here all over again.
In short, I’m a mess. Not even a hot mess. Just a stinky, slovenly, messy mess.
By the time I get the kids to bed, I’ve worked myself into quite the state. So I curl up in the corner of one of the guest bedrooms with a blanket over my shoulders and a churning in my gut and call Phoebe.
“Where are you?” Phoebe breathes the moment she picks up.
“Believe it or not, still in New York.”
“What?” she yelps.
I’m not expecting that reaction. She sounds unreasonably panicked by that little tidbit. It has the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
“Y-yeah. After what happened with Josh yesterday, Ruslan insisted we stay in New York under his protection.”
Silence.
“Pheebs? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Um… I guess I was just hoping you’d be far away by now.”
Yeah, okay. Something’sdefinitelywrong. Phoebe would never hope that unless she had a good freaking reason to.
“Why?”
“Em—”
“Please,Phoebe. I’ve had a rough day and I think there’s a few more of those on the horizon. So just tell me.”
She clears her throat. “It’s Ben.” My heart plummets. “He filed a missing person’s report for all four of you.”
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“I’m guessing you haven’t turned on the news today?”
“He was on the news? Fuck me! Who has the pull to get him on—”
And then it hits me. So obvious I can’t believe I didn’t think of it already.
Beatrice and Barrett.
Theyhave the resources and the connections to get Ben on TV, spouting off God knows what about the three children he barely looked at even when theywerearound.
“My parents! My freaking parents. It has to be them. Were they on, too?”
“Not that I saw. The cameras seemed locked in on Ben.”
“It’s only a matter of time. They’re gonna wanna capitalize on the spotlight.”
“C’mon, hon, do you really think they’d—”
“Of course they would!” I explode. “Of course they would, Phoebe. They’ve wanted to get their paws on these kids since Sienna died. SincebeforeSienna died. Anything to correct the mistakes they made with us. Anything to get another set of trophy kids.”
“Honey, I think you’re spiraling—”
Goddamn right I’m spiraling. It’s frankly amazing I’ve stayed calm this long.
